1And Jehovah will speak to Moses, saying, 2Command the sons of Israel, and they shall send forth from the camp every one leprous, and every one flowing, and every one unclean for the soul: 3From male even to female ye shall send them forth, without the camp shall ye send them; and they shall not defile their camp where I dwell in the midst of them. 4And the sons of Israel will do so, and they will send them forth without the camp: as Jehovah spake to Moses, so did the sons of Israel. 5And Jehovah will speak to Moses, saying, 6Speak to the sons of Israel, A man or woman when they shall do from any sin Of man to cover a transgression against Jehovah, and that soul transgressed; 7And they confessed their sin which they did, and he returned his transgresion with its head, and he added its fifth upon it, and he gave to whom he transgressed against him. 8And if not to the man a kinsman to give back the transgression to him, the transgression being given back to Jehovah, to the priest; besides the ram of expiations, it shall be expiated by it for him. 9And every offering for all the consecrated things of the sons of Israel which they shall bring to the priest, shall be to him. 10And a man his holy things shall be to him; a man who shall give to the priest, it shall be to him. 11And Jehovah will speak to Moses, saying, 12Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, A man, a man when his wife shall turn aside, and she covered a transgression against him, 13And a man lay with her with emission of seed, and it was hid from the eyes of her husband, and it was covered, and she was defiled, and no witness against her, and she was not taken hold of. 14And the spirit of jealousy passed upon him, and he was jealous of his wife, and she was defiled: or the spirit of jealousy passed upon him, and he was jealous of his wife, and she was not defiled: 15And the man brought forth his wife to the priest, and brought her offering for her, the tenth of an ephah of flour of barley; he shall not pour oil upon it, and he shall not give frankincense upon it, for it the gift of jealousy, the gift of remembrance, bringing iniquity to remembrance. 16And the priest brought her near, and made her stand before Jehovah. 17And the priest took holy waters in a vessel of earthen, and from the dust which shall be upon the bottom of the dwelling, the priest shall take and he gave into the water. 18And the priest made the woman stand before Jehovah, and uncovered the head of the woman, and gave upon her hands the gift of remembrance, this is the gift of jealousy: and in the hand of the priest shall be to him the waters of contradiction, causing the curse. 19And the priest bound her by an oath, and said to the woman, If a man lay not with thee, and thou didst not turn aside to be defiled instead of thy husband, be thou unpunished from the water of contradiction, causing the curse. 20And if thou didst turn aside instead of thy husband, and if thou wert defiled, and a man gave with thee his bed besides thy husband; 21And the priest bound the woman by an oath in these curses, and the priest said to the woman, Jehovah will give thee for a curse, and for an oath in the midst of thy people, in Jehovah's giving thy thigh to fall, and thy belly to go forth. 22And the waters causing the curse shall come into thy bowels, and cause thy belly to come forth, and thy thigh to fall. And the woman said, Amen, amen. 23And the priest wrote these curses in a book, and he wiped off into the water of contradiction. 24And he caused the woman to drink the water of contradiction causing the curse; and the waters causing the curse shall come into her for contradiction. 25And the priest took out of the hand of the woman the gift of jealousy, and lifted up the gift before Jehovah and brought it to the altar. 26And the priest took with the hand from the gift its remembrance, and burnt upon the altar, and afterward he shall cause the woman to drink the water. 27And he caused her to drink the water, and it was if she was defiled and she shall cover the transgression against her husband, and the waters causing the curse came into her for contradiction, and her belly came forth, and her thigh fell, and the woman was for a curse in the midst of her people. 28And if the woman was not defiled and she was clean, and she was unpunished, and conceived seed. 29This the law of jealousies, when a woman shall turn aside instead of her husband, and she was defiled; 30Or a man, when the spirit of jealousy shall pass over upon him, and he was jealous of his wife, and he made the woman stand before Jehovah, and the priest did to her all this law. 31And the man was clean from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 2 THE UNCLEAN TO BE REMOVED OUT OF THE CAMP. (
Num 5:1-
Num 5:4)
Command the children of Israel, that they put out of the camp every leper--The exclusion of leprous persons from the camp in the wilderness, as from cities and villages afterwards, was a sanitary measure taken according to prescribed rules (Lev. 13:1-14:57). This exclusion of lepers from society has been acted upon ever since; and it affords almost the only instance in which any kind of attention is paid in the East to the prevention of contagion. The usage still more or less prevails in the East among people who do not think the least precaution against the plague or cholera necessary; but judging from personal observation, we think that in Asia the leprosy has now much abated in frequency and virulence. It usually appears in a comparatively mild form in Egypt, Palestine, and other countries where the disorder is, or was, endemic. Small societies of excluded lepers live miserably in paltry huts. Many of them are beggars, going out into the roads to solicit alms, which they receive in a wooden bowl; charitable people also sometimes bring different articles of food, which they leave on the ground at a short distance from the hut of the lepers, for whom it is intended. They are generally obliged to wear a distinctive badge that people may know them at first sight and be warned to avoid them. Other means were adopted among the ancient Jews by putting their hand on their mouth and crying, "Unclean, unclean" [
Lev 13:45]. But their general treatment, as to exclusion from society, was the same as now described. The association of the lepers, however, in this passage, with those who were subject only to ceremonial uncleanness, shows that one important design in the temporary exile of such persons was to remove all impurities that reflected dishonor on the character and residence of Israel's King. And this vigilant care to maintain external cleanliness in the people was typically designed to teach them the practice of moral purity, or cleansing themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. The regulations made for ensuring cleanliness in the camp suggest the adoption of similar means for maintaining purity in the church. And although, in large communities of Christians, it may be often difficult or delicate to do this, the suspension or, in flagrant cases of sin, the total excommunication of the offender from the privileges and communion of the church is an imperative duty, as necessary to the moral purity of the Christian as the exclusion of the leper from the camp was to physical health and ceremonial purity in the Jewish church.
6 RESTITUTION ENJOINED. (
Num 5:5-
Num 5:10)
When a man or a woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the Lord--This is a wrong or injury done by one man to the property of another, and as it is called "a trespass against the Lord," it is implied, in the case supposed, that the offense has been aggravated by prevaricating--by a false oath, or a fraudulent lie in denying it, which is a "trespass" committed against God, who is the sole judge of what is falsely sworn or spoken (
Acts 5:3-
Acts 5:4).
and that person be guilty--that is, from the obvious tenor of the passage, conscience-smitten, or brought to a sense and conviction of his evil conduct. (See on
Lev 6:2). In that case, there must be: first, confession, a penitential acknowledgment of sin; secondly, restitution of the property, or the giving of an equivalent, with the additional fine of a fifth part, both as a compensation to the person defrauded, and as a penalty inflicted on the injurer, to deter others from the commission of similar trespasses. (See on
Exod 22:1). The difference between the law recorded in that passage and this is that the one was enacted against flagrant and determined thieves, the other against those whose necessities might have urged them into fraud, and whose consciences were distressed by their sin. This law also supposes the injured party to be dead, in which case, the compensation due to his representatives was to be paid to the priest, who, as God's deputy, received the required satisfaction.
9 every offering . . . shall be his--Whatever was given in this way, or otherwise, as by freewill offerings, irrevocably belonged to the priest.
12 THE TRIAL OF JEALOUSY. (Num. 5:11-31)
if any man's wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him--This law was given both as a strong discouragement to conjugal infidelity on the part of a wife, and a sufficient protection of her from the consequences of a hasty and groundless suspicion on the part of the husband. His suspicions, however, were sufficient in the absence of witnesses (
Lev 20:10) to warrant the trial described; and the course of proceeding to be followed was for the jealous husband to bring his wife unto the priest with an offering of barley meal, because none were allowed to approach the sanctuary empty handed (
Exod 23:15). On other occasions, there were mingled with the offering, oil which signified joy, and frankincense which denoted acceptance (
Ps 141:2). But on the occasion referred to, both these ingredients were to be excluded, partly because it was a solemn appeal to God in distressing circumstances, and partly because it was a sin offering on the part of the wife, who came before God in the character of a real or suspected offender.
17 the priest shall take holy water--Water from the laver, which was to be mixed with dust--an emblem of vileness and misery (
Gen 3:14;
Ps 22:15).
in an earthen vessel--This fragile ware was chosen because, after being used, it was broken in pieces (
Lev 6:28;
Lev 11:33). All the circumstances of this awful ceremony--her being placed with her face toward the ark--her uncovered head, a sign of her being deprived of the protection of her husband (
1Cor 11:7) --the bitter potion being put into her hands preparatory to an appeal to God--the solemn adjuration of the priest (
Num 5:19-
Num 5:22), all were calculated in no common degree to excite and appall the imagination of a person conscious of guilt.
21 The Lord make thee a curse, &c.--a usual form of imprecation (
Isa 65:15;
Jer 29:22).
22 the woman shall say, Amen, Amen--The Israelites were accustomed, instead of formally repeating the words of an oath merely to say, "Amen," a "so be it" to the imprecations it contained. The reduplication of the word was designed as an evidence of the woman's innocence, and a willingness that God would do to her according to her desert.
23 write these curses in a book--The imprecations, along with her name, were inscribed in some kind of record--on parchment, or more probably on a wooden tablet.
blot them out with the bitter water--If she were innocent, they could be easily erased, and were perfectly harmless; but if guilty, she would experience the fatal effects of the water she had drunk.
29 This is the law of jealousies--Adultery discovered and proved was punished with death. But strongly suspected cases would occur, and this law made provision for the conviction of the guilty person. It was, however, not a trial conducted according to the forms of judicial process, but an ordeal through which a suspected adulteress was made to go--the ceremony being of that terrifying nature, that, on the known principles of human nature, guilt or innocence could not fail to appear. From the earliest times, the jealousy of Eastern people has established ordeals for the detection and punishment of suspected unchastity in wives. The practice was deep-rooted as well as universal. And it has been thought, that the Israelites being strongly biassed in favor of such usages, this law of jealousies "was incorporated among the other institutions of the Mosaic economy, in order to free it from the idolatrous rites which the heathens had blended with it." Viewed in this light, its sanction by divine authority in a corrected and improved form exhibits a proof at once of the wisdom and condescension of God.